Punjab: Timeline (Terrorist Activities) -2011

Former City Police Officer (CPO) Saud Aziz and former Rawal Town Superintendent of Police (SP) Khurram Shehzad charged in former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto murder case filed a bail plea on the grounds of lack of evidence to prove their involvement in the murder in an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC). Read less...

Police on January 3 seized a vehicle laden with explosives and arrested two suspected militants, Mohammad Safdar and Azhar Mehmood, on Thatta Khalil Road near Taxila in Punjab, reports Dawn. 150-kilogram explosives, 2,000 detonators, 5,750 safety fuses, eight explosive packets and 4,800-metre detonator wire were recovered from the car. Read less...

Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s assassin Mumtaz Qadri was on January 5 remanded in Police custody for one day by the area magistrate, reports Daily Times. The magistrate remanded Qadri in Police custody with the instruction to produce him in an anti-terrorism court (ATC) for further remand. Read less...

Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Malik Akram Awan rejected a Police plea for a 12 day physical remand of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s killer Mumtaz Qadri and settled for only a five-day physical remand with the direction to have his medical checkup. Read less...

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on January 6 claimed responsibility for the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer saying that the "man who killed him was from among us," reported Indian Express. "We claim responsibility for the killing of Salmaan Taseer. The Punjab Governor was our target and we have planned this programme and the man who killed him was from among us," Shakirullah Shakir, a spokesman for the fidayeen (suicide squads) group associated with Qari Hussain, said. Read less...

A militant outfit, named, Mawviya group, is planning to launch a suicide attack in the Sheikhupura District prison where blasphemy convict Asia Bibi is under detention. Read less...

Sunni Tehreek (ST) activists gathered at Benazir Bhutto Shaheed (BBS) Road and staged a protest at Liaquat Bagh area of Rawalpindi in Punjab demanding release of Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, reported Daily Times. “If Qadri is given death sentence, the whole nation will besiege Parliament House,” warned Rawalpindi ST Ulema Board chairman Allama Ghufran Mehmood Sialvi. Read less...

Anti-Terrorist Court Judge Malik Akram Awan awarded 14-day judicial remand of Qadri and sent him to Adiala Jail of Rawalpindi in Punjab. Read less...

Malik Mumtaz Qadri, who killed the Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer on January 4, in his official confessional statement on January 10 accepted that he killed the Governor over his statement regarding the country’s blasphemy law and said that he had acted alone, reports Daily Times. Qadri, in his confessional statement said that he killed the Punjab Governor for his remarks to change the blasphemy law, adding that he had acted as an individual and ruled out the involvement of any religious or militant outfit in his actions, though he confessed to be instigated by the speeches of two clerics, Qari Hanif and Ishtaque Shah, in a religious gathering on January 1. Read less...

Police is tracking Qari Hanif and Ishtaque Shah of Attock District in Punjab after the confessional statement of Malik Mumtaz Qadri. Sources reveal that Muhammad Hanif Qureshi was the imam of the Aamna Masjid situated at Kuri Road in Islamabad. Read less...

Punjab Home Minister Rana Sanaullah on January 11 said that al Qaeda suspect Qari Saifullah Akhtar was not a terrorist, reports Express Tribune. Former Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto accused Akhtar of being involved in an assassination attempt on her on October 18, 2007, in Karachi, Sindh, but Punjab authorities released him for lack of evidence. Rana Sanaullah said. “So if he was released after being interrogated in two most sensitive cases, he cannot be termed a terrorist or accused of involvement in any case without existence of any other proof.” Read less...

The Punjab Police on January 12 recalled four Policemen, holding extreme religious views, from their active duty and asked them to report to their respective District headquarters, reported Dawn. Malik Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, during his interrogation revealed that four Police officials held “extreme religious views” and could strike any time. The four Police officials included Shakeel Qadri, a cousin of Mumtaz Qadri presently posted with Elite Force at Rawalpindi in Punjab. The remaining three constables were, Shaheen Sabir of Punjab Constabulary, presently part of the Punjab Chief Minister’s squad, Taimoor and Naseer, constables of the Elite Force (Rawalpindi). Read less...

Police guard, Mumtaz Qadri, who confessed to the killing of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer on January 4, had previously been assigned to the President and Prime Minister 18 times over the last three years and to two foreign delegations. This incident is also reported to cast suspicion on four other Elite bodyguards who could "take terrorist action anytime," reveals a Police report. "There is no psychological or personality test, or any other method to check on the background of personnel," a former Police chief of Punjab province, Khwaja Khalid Farooq said. Read less...

An Anti Terrorism Court, ending the judicial remand of arrested Police officers Saud Aziz and Khurram Shahzad on January 14, handed them over to Federal Investigation Agency in eight day physical remand, The News reported. It was reported that the court declared void the verdict of the trial court in connection with not giving the suspects in physical remand because the defence counsel had admitted that Saud Aziz had refused to hand over his cell phone to the investigation team on December 27, 2007, the day of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Read less...

The Jama’at-ud-Da’awa (JuD) organised rally in Lahore on January 17 and invited clerics to speak during the demonstration spewed hate speech upon hate speech, targeted minorities, incited people to violence with impunity and roused people to adopt the ‘way of jihad’, reports The Express Tribune. Hundreds of JuD activists and their sympathisers initially assembled near Nasir Bagh and started marching towards the Punjab Assembly building on The Mall. The ‘chief’ of JuD’s political affairs wing Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki said that anyone “supporting a blasphemer is also a blasphemer and both must meet the same fate”. Read less...

A Pakistani court on January 21 dismissed a petition seeking annulment of the case against Punjab Governor Salman Taseer's assassin, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, reported The Hindu. The court observed that “although death sentence can be handed down to those who have committed blasphemy by a court of law after due procedure, nobody can be encouraged to kill others in violation of laws.'' Read less...

A suicide bomber struck at the Ghora Chowk in the Urdu Bazaar area of Lahore, the Provincial Capital of Punjab, killing at least 10 people, including a woman and three Policemen, and injured at least 85 others on January 25, reported Daily Times. The incident took place at the entrance point of a route for the passage of the procession regarding the annual chehlum of Hazrat Imam Hussain (RA) and to provide entry to those who wanted to join the urs of Hazrat Ali Hajveri (RA). Read less...

Anti-Terrorism Court will formally indict Malik Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed killer of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, on February 1 after Kohsar Police submitted their investigation report to the court on January 24, reports Daily Times. The trial of the accused will be held in the jail owing to security reasons. In its investigation report, Police relied on the confessional statement of Qadri, who admitted to killing Taseer on January 4 after he was instigated by speeches of two prayer leaders in his locality of Muslim Town in Rawalpindi on December 31. Read less...